Crucial Connections
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE RELEASE OF THEAtre Communications Group’s Theatre Facts 2018, we spoke with 12 managing leaders from a diverse group of theatres across the country about swings in ticket sales, developing and diversifying contributed income, and building and maintaining audiences.
Theatre Facts 2018 is the 39th edition of TCG’s annual in-depth industry report based on data from the TCG Fiscal Survey. Written by Zannie Giraud Voss, Glenn B. Voss, and Daniel Fonner of SMU DataArts, and Ilana B. Rose and Laurie Baskin of TCG, the report gives theatremakers and theatre lovers the opportunity to examine financial, performance, and attendance data for the U.S. professional not-for-profit theatre field from three perspectives:
The Universe section offers a broad overview of the U.S. professional not-for-profit theatre field in 2018, which included an estimated 1,855 organizations.
The Trend Theatres section explores changes over time, with longitudinal analysis of the 119 TCG Member Theatres that participated in the Fiscal Survey yearly since 2014, and includes data for 88 theatres that have participated yearly since 2009.
The Profiled Theatres section provides a detailed examination of data from all 177 TCG Fiscal Survey 2018 participants (TCG Member Theatres that provided data for fiscal years concluding anytime between Oct. 31, 2017, and Sept. 30, 2018) and breaks down those theatres into six budget groups, based on annual expenses—from Group 1 (annual expenses of $499,999 or less) to Group 6 (expenses of $10 million or more).
Theatre Facts reports can be downloaded from the Research section of the TCG website, tcg.org.
All references to the Trend Theatres that follow denote the five-year analysis, unless otherwise specified, and all references to growth figures reflect inflation-adjusted growth. Subscriptions refer to subscription and memberships.
The Rise of Single Tickets
Subscriptions and single tickets represented the primary sources of earned income for Trend Theatres in every year from 2014 through 2018, but they experienced very different growth patterns over the period. After reaching a five-year high in 2017, average subscription income fell to a five-year low in 2018. Overall it declined by 6.8 percent over those years. Average single ticket income, on the other hand, increased annually, with 6.9 percent growth over the period. This trend is mirrored in ticket sales figures: Both the average number of subscribers and the average number of subscription tickets sold declined annually; respectively, they were 11.7 percent and 13.0 percent lower in 2018 than in 2014. And after a decline from 2014 to 2015, the average number of single tickets sold increased annually and was 2.3 percent higher in 2018 than at the beginning of the period.
Chris Jennings, executive director for the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., corroborated this finding, saying he’s seen a steady decline in subscriptions over the last 10 years, while, in fiscal year 2018, the company saw the highest single-ticket sales in their history.
Noting the increased pressure on single-ticket sales, Jennings was quick to add a caveat. “In that exact same season we had two shows that were our lowest-selling shows as well,” he says. The two highest-selling shows were ones with great name recognition, Camelot and Hamlet.
“What we’re seeing is that the marketplace doesn’t respond to just good, adventurous art, but wants a product they understand, know, and have comfort in,” Jennings continued. “That’s
